bros

boys sobering up
boys being jealous of other boys' ability to sober up
boys getting stoned in the car, listening to pop music
boys inviting girls they sort of like to the bar
boys sharing a chair with girls at the bar
boys looking like part of a couple
boys seeing their exgirlfriends at the bar & avoiding eyecontact
boys seeing other boys' exgirlfriends at the bar & trying to avoid talking to them
boys not using condoms ever, woops
boys drinking out of the jars they brought from home
boys going home to try to fuck the girls they sort of like
boys getting naked for girls
boys being annoyed at girls when they change their minds
boys insisting on having an orgasm
boys sitting up in bed at 4:34 am, crying
boys saying, I think I'm going to go
boys saying, I don't care about this
boys sobbing while girls comfort them
boys sobbing that they need to get their shit together
boys saying, I need a smoke
boys weeping and smoking with girls on the porch while they smoke
boys saying, I want to meet someone who is as passionfilled as I
boys apologizing for being so crazy
boys making girls come, surprised
boys saying Thank you for being so kind to me
boys sleeping in
boys late for work
boys with bad news
boys really needing other boys
boys finding how their own problems are nothing compared to those of other boys
boys acting like everything will be all right
  because it will be, for them
     eventually

kids of summer

we found by stench a tarp-covered maggot dog on the river
the corpse smell inducing the vomit of a nearby fisherperson
ian poking it with a stick to find out what it was
did someone attempt a haphazard burial riverside?
did someone throw their best friend off a bridge
I've never seen so many maggots
it's been hot like summer again, so
they're loving on scorch death
we had to ford the river
because our spot was taken
by a humansized shit
whose odor was pleasanter
than that of the poor friend
and the homeless family
it was like a birthday party, tons of kids
changing to naked in the bushes
but all of our party made it
HERE LIES BUTTHEAD
nickey didn't get the ref, there were more advanced computer games when she was a kid
like the sims
probably sims 2, at the very least
oh youth
I don't really get carded anymore
we put our chairs in the water, sinking in the sand
and watched the rivercops drive around us
officer undercurrent, paddleboard cop, on the case
ah, summer.
taking the easy way out

half a man

      if I only had one arm to hold you
      I would hold you at arm's length
I did cry a lot yesterday, this morning
I was a baby, it was probably 100 degrees when I woke up in your bed this morning
I was a baby when I left the bar
because I couldn't find kyle anymore
but he found molly
just not, me, molly
just the right molly
and I was angry that he left me there, the ravers allover the place
I was in the alley and I was walking and a guy chased me down
and said, Can I walk with you
but I was already done walking
so he said, Can I sit with you
and I said, No
and I was thinking, in what world does this make sense?
when does a girl ever chase a guy down an alley to ask if she can walk with him?
I mean, what?
some other guys sat down, and I let them talk to me because they had whiskey
so I drank a lot of that
and I wasn't so mad
but then I had to leave, and I was drunk
and I was sobbing, I had to take my glasses off because I couldn't see
and I was yelling a lot at myself
I was pretty mean to myself
and I was mean to kyle
and I was mean to the others
so I went to the other bar to see what I could see
and I got a cocktail & put it into my jar
and I called one
and he said he would meet me at the river
but then I got caught by some conversation
and I was laughing, not crying anymore
and the basque man followed me
and I gave him my number
so he could text me the most offensive things he could think of
because neither of us gets offended
and then I did chase someone down
we were walking the same way
we talked about making espresso
and about art school
and then I went to the river, and found that one walking toward me
he'd been waiting for half an hour for me, I felt badly about that
we went to his house
we went in there
and we were in, for hours
and I was glad
I had stopped crying
until this morning, when he got out of bed
because he is passionless & silent
and I was wondering where all the feelers are
where are the ones like me?
I left, he didn't know I'd been crying
he doesn't know about my bad brain
he doesn't know anything
he doesn't know that I write about him sometimes
and that I am more than I let on
but I'm glad I got some human touch
some human struggle
some interactive strangers
some surprise journeying between tears
and it's hot
so I'm going swimming
and I think the tears
are done for the day
WHEEEEWWWW
thank my brain is starting
 to grow back a little

what i am doing right now

I am standing in the alleyway between Bannock & Idaho
smoking a cigarette in that babytee
waiting for molly,
everyone's ahlways looking
its expensive
the new miley cyrus video looks sort of expensive
I will watch it probably one more time,
but nothing cares about it
no one is touching my leg
but at least you say, I say no to sex all the time
to hang out with you
who cares it's like 1 aclock
what we'll stay up all night like we're not
winsome haired
falling apart people

as I wrote this I was approached by a man with an unplaceable accent, very sweated, gray tank, heavyset
he said, Can I help you with something?
I said, No, I don't think so
he said, If your boyfriend gives you any trouble, I can give you comfort
Because when I saw you over there, you made my heart -
which he now gripped -
Sad
and his face distorted
I told him I was sorry
he said, Yeah
and he told me to be careful with myself

That made me start to cry
but I've been crying all day because I have a bad brain, so
I felt sorry though

that I give a stranger SAD HEART too

I can't
make your heart sad, foolonmollyguy
I can't
be in charge anymore
  of those
just me in my things
easyeasyway

chamberpot

sitting in the dark of the culdesac,
it's funny bc it's halfair of night summer birds and
desert flowers & perfect roses
but half also the foul sewage some nearby place, human waste afloat
we're human wastes wafting, too
long arm me
say, I'm sad that you're leaving
so I can say, No you aren't
how could you be?
how could you know I'll never like you enough
how could I teach you what dtf means
how could you insist again, thrust the acronym on me
tell me I'm a really cool girl, okay
let's go with that, it gets me places
impress people with my lightness? a quickness
I don't even notice it
it's 3:33 am, repeating
& if you hadn't danced like that,
I wouldn't have attempted such an acronym myself
I'm trying to acroname me, here
but the odors of the earlymorning on the foothills' roots
of the way things have always smelled there
and new miasmic winds from this recent development, the upturned earth, the toilets & bowls for our newrich filth,
are reminding me too much
of all of the world's beauties & disappointments
I've got an appointment with alone,
with the softbodied dog
with the blank page
& by the time I'm in bed, staring at it
I've forgotten the inside letter I've composed to you
bc of course I still unreadily compose them
(you know).
I am not sad I'm leaving,
your long limbs longer
just longing at my acronyms
I'm just sad to still
be here, in the fresh in the gross
composing at an invisible dead eye, ear, heart
& to hear you say that we were once in love
is like the crush of night
and the wash of earlymorning birds thrusting their calls at me
and I want to tendril down the drainage, too
for you
and very, very away from you
at a ravaging pace

88% humidity

surprise body! surprise
lately:
petrichor
wet everything
grease girl
favorite song
broodless
dancing till soaking
dancing with dumb rattail joey, sorry
hot joey sighting
dancing to hot sweat joey drumming
of course that hot joey was the drummer, smh
awkward date sighting, no thanks
hundreds of gallons of alcohol
pc upset
aggrofags
sorry, not
come to new orleans with us
puppybody
puppypuke, sorry
ida pizza, smh
all of the $$
happy birthday, I love you
no don't talk to me
other guy, wtf is your name again?
let's make out
no, nevermind
disdain girl
glad for rain
let's party till we die
summer mood
get that moon
get it

the last conversations

I stayed up until 3 with Gunmetal; when I arrived he was with date. She was poised and pretty and as I went to the bathroom I shut the door and sang a tune to myself- it was about someones plenty, I was trying to remember the song "when you're gone" by the cranberries. I heard him repeating the lines through the door. I opened it and lit his toothbrush with paste. He began to pee and with foaming mouth hurriedly asked me hushed to tell him immediately of any impressions I had of the Date. 

"I know she may seem just pretty, and that's why I asked her out because I just saw pretty, but now I know she's actually smart, and you can throw a ball at her, if you throw a ball at her she'll quietly hold it, she'll subtly toss it around in her hands and then she'll fling it back. So you can do that. So you should, and it's important to me what you think, as a girl too, as the only girl in new york who's most like me." He finished pissing and brushing and I thanked him for the complement. I told him I didn't have enough information left...

He made her a cd which he held out on over dinner, uncertain if she was worthy or not. He ended up giving it to her, along with a bar of chocolate wrapped in white tissue paper. I said, okay mom, and am not sure if he was wise. I suppose now, though, we'll find out on which side she stands. Afraid much? Don't let in on him. 

After awhile I tended to feel my head heavy; my eyes dried up in my skull as the contacts hadn't been taken out in a day. I didn't sleep at home the night before, and in fact avoided the place for a day. But only because I knew all I'd see was remnants of good times past. On the coffee table there still sits tobacco flakes and spilt wine etcetera from a thursday weeks ago, the last thursday of some certain loves. And the beginnings of others. Soda left back to Tucson and the glass-eyed cowboy turned a little to dust. And cups with ancient lemon slices sitting in their bottoms, from the night of white horse when K bellowed my name, face inside the toilet bowl... I need you! I didn't want to come home to these pretty filthy little memories and to the cat Mexico, the only person on whom I can depend. I hate that I have to call the cat a person now, and that when I arrive or awaken it's there, white and with a mew, and I say, oh hi, Mexico, oh hi baby kitty, how are you. And then I kiss it and tell it I love it. Go to work and people accuse me of kissing white fur as it's decorating my face and lips. Pathetic! So I stayed away for a night, the night previous, and, eyes dried, head hanging, back in pain, wanting a massage. So Gray grabs me and feels my spine and accuses me of having scoliosis, which parannoys me. 

How can you tell? I ask him. He says, imagine how many women I've slept with. Imagine how well I know the curve of each spine. My first girlfriend had intense scoliosis. I used to have to tighten the screws on her brace. I interject that this conversation is really making me uncomfortable. That I have to go peel my eyeballs from my head. He begins to dance, telling me that this particular song on is "so yours." I can't dance and he hugs me and gives me a kiss on the mouth and I leave soothed, wondering. Are best friends in a future for me.

The night before I went out when work finished. A boy in particular I was to walk home. He said to me, I would invite you up but it would be a bad idea.

I said okay, and we walked and there was his house. We looked at one another for ten seconds. He said again, I would invite you up but it is a bad idea.

I said, okay, well if you do I am going to accept.

He said okay.

He apologized that his spotless room was a mess. Labradors on bedsheets. He said, this is awkward. 

No, we're just going to sleep. We got into bed, his arm around me. After a few minutes he said he thought maybe we should take our pants off, dreams ensued.

In the morning the sun shown down intently. I was in a sweat and was greeted with nervous breaths and corner eye looks. This was a bad idea we shouldn't have done this, he of course said. He left the room and I said aloud to give us breaks. I dressed and he stood in the doorway. He started a conversation while silently urging me to leave as I put on my socks. I sat there after trying my shoes and we stared for longer. I got up and he asked me for a phonenumber which somehow punctuated a patheticness that was to immediately radiate through me. 

That day I camped out in ft. greene. I watched four episodes of sex & the city at Dave's. They were about threesomes, blow jobs, and finally, pregnancy. I got a little tearyeyed, on the inside of course, during the last episode. And vowed to myself to never again watch such heartbreaking trash. 

I refuse to have the guilt complexes and fearfulnesses of all the others radiate into my little existence. I am still regretless, as best I can, and am pleased to make the avoidance of these disconcerting little neuroses. True I'm all too eager to acquaint myself with these awkwardly delicious human beings, feeling and feeling and feeling again, and a tearing at a face to smile later. 

oh, sea

oh not to know,

recalcitrant to romanticize
a trust blanket obstinance

until it's burrow     buried until it's dead

belief in the baby

to won’t regress
from human intention, to want you, to

come here

but to only look
forward at some next
circumstances unforeseen

when anyone seen
again. and every trust in eyes. to get a person

with such feelings
again. looking straight at us &

out of this.

an attitude flame, (whether or not you knew) : (this was your idea) renascence upwards

all for you know

I’m not dormant

in true, you was

captivated because

I am a twist, I'm reticent

it will happen at one
night, revealing
there’s no way an awayance
can be from anyone. seduced
unintentionally into thought,
a someone
so happens in such away
feeling can't readily be believed

needs for anyone, and then then someone

unpredictable, this is happening

relating to need to be need to be

hours later, so close a cry

there will be another pacific: she pulled back.

the never knowable sea

6 august 2008

it's humid

it used to fuel, it is letting itself go, look at it
all shab, all grub
it's avoiding the mirror lately
it hasn't any pets anymore
everyone's in a flat great fucking mood
puddles are lying
reflections of trees
like our CITY OF TREES tattoos we're getting
it rained very early this morning
I want to know how to barometer
how to measure the letting-yourself-go
in length of body hair?
in width of copper chain stain on dirt neck?
in amount of bodyodor emanating?
in a caliper of fatroll?
I just googled the word WHATEVER
but I haven't checked the results
it's 70 degrees, 53% humidity in boise
it's 97 degrees, and only 47% humidity in new orleans
I know how to do this in the wet
so let's get it ONNNNN

last call girl

I'm the end-of-night girl
I'm your last chance
the bar is lit
the teens are falling down the hill towards their cars
I'm closing this place down.
can you talk to me
can you walk me home
can you get my number,
can you call me tomorrow
can you kiss me
can you
  hey, free country
pretend
I'm not your last-resort
I'm not an act of desperation
that you're listening
when I tell you
  I'm in med school
  I'm 35
  I'm moving to hawaii in 4 days
  I'm gay
&tc.

brief paragraph abt being satisfied

I wanted to take an opportunity
coconut oil, the warm day
the supermoon, tonight, tonight?
I am always mooning, then
how is it, how it does.
I am a drying leaf
but I am fresher
& I am sweettasting, I know it.
luscious gusher
saying my goodbyes, timing them
alright, now
and really
full of it all, this time

& glad to be

regretless

I fell in love with this surrealist painter
he was my height, 100 lbs,
and I could pick him up & carry him over my shoulder.
he would laugh a lot, it didn't bother him, I guess.
he wore polyester printed largecollared shirts and a grubby fedora
and he had a shady dali mustache.
the first night he spent with me
was the night I punched my best friend in the face.
we were fighting & I demanded a cigarette so she threw it across the room
so I punched her in the face.
I'd been punching and getting punched a lot, those days
just being drunk, just for fun
but she didn't think that was very fun.
she had a pretty good black eye
and she wouldn't talk to me for a week.
the boy & I took a turn punching each other that night, and laughing
I gave him a shiner, too
but I already had one
from the boy I was already in love with, the boy who drove me to indianapolis.
the surrealist painter & I fucked a lot
we fucked on the roof of his friend's house
before playing poker with pennies.
I won that game, it's the only time I've ever played poker
so I am undefeated at poker.
before we fucked on that rooftop
I'd had to remove a tampon
which I left, as a sleazy fuckplace marker.
we climbed down a ladder into the kitchen
and I won $1.33 in pennies.
he was a drunk guy. the first alcoholic I'd ever loved
and when it got bad, when this tender genius would get wasted
he'd slur
and fall around
and I didn't like who he'd become.
his skin was yellowish.
he told me he wanted to cut back.
I learned to cook for him. I wanted him to eat something besides hot dogs,
but he didn't care what he ate.
I started riding a bike,
because I thought I could get some exercise into him
but he didn't care about that.
he didn't care about anything.
when I told him that I loved him
but we couldn't be together anymore
on account of his broken promises
and failed endeavors
he said, Okay. that he knew I deserved better.
he didn't put up a fight.
he moved away shortly after, he couldn't hold a job
but he made a beautiful painting for my birthday
which I left accidentally
in my basement.

regretless

I fell in love with a lithuanian name
he was my best friend, he shared his xanax with me from time to time
I would have anxiety attacks in those days
we would dress up
in ponchos
and feathers
and we would play pool and ride bikes and drink mountains of old style and sing karaoke everyday
and we'd have sex in soapless showers
he would sing, wouldn't it be nice? by the beach boys
but he had a longdistance love
and we both knew our time was short

on his last day in town
I discovered bloody marys
they were $1 at the bridgeport sports bar.
we stayed there for hours, playing pool, drinking thousands of bloody marys
the bartender stopped charging us for them.
there was a thunderstorm that night
and I knew I was going to cry
so I took off my shoes and climbed into a tree outside the bar.
I sat up there for awhile, screaming with the wind
& it was so loud I couldn't hear my voice.
I couldn't wind my thoughts & goodbyes.
I watched the lightning all around me.
I waited until I was finished howling
before I came down
my knees were bloody from scraping up the bark.
I went into the bar and borrowed a pair of scissors.
I cut the button I'd had dangling from a string around my neck
and I gave it to him.
he knew I was going to give it to the next person I fell in love with.
he told me that he loved me, too.
I cried all night while we laid in bed together,
he took off this grubby tiedyed shirt that I'd given him
so I could blow my nose on it.
I found it a couple of days later, smashed between the bed and the wall

I saw him again, 5 years later

his band came to town

it was my 28th birthday.
we sat in someone's convertible in the parkinglot outside the bar
and we talked about how we loved each other
and how we were
and how we were.
I wonder if I'll ever see him again

teen stuff

I just burned your name.

I watched the deathgray spread, smoking out

the fire on your letters

tried to scald your promise.

I have said goodbye so many many times

& keep finding little reminders, or they find me, or they already know me, or I them

I can see them behind my closed eyelids

little burns on my eyeballs always.

but I burned your name

& I couldn't ever say your good name. let's someone else say it for you

because I'm a giveme, we know

and you've ataken

which makes it all a part of it all.

scrapes, now, ashes

those letters

just stuff

on the wind

forever, dead like forever.

period

period

period

regretless

I fell in love with a boy who told me I smelled better when I hadn't bathed

I used all of these products from the body shop,

we didn't have the body shop yet, in idaho.

I wasn't quite a vegetarian

and I didn't really smoke cigarettes

but he was, and did
he smoked parliaments.

and he'd come over almost every day, though we weren't dating

and we weren't fucking

and he'd give me a hug when he got upstairs to the apartment

on kedzie blvd

I was blowdrying my hair

and I smelled like candy coconut and candy pear and all of the most exotic candy fruits

and he said, You'll smell better in a couple of days

I felt like he'd given me permission

for the first time in 19 years

to smell like a human being.

I was excited

because he hardly bathed

or washed his hair

or changed out of his russian military sweater

or his pleated pants

and I thought he smelled like the best thing in the world.

I met him in a photography class, and he told me later that he'd noticed me for awhile

he'd thought, Who is that sad girl

I just liked his sweater

and I was excited to see what he'd wear the next week

but I never in all of our time together

saw him wear anything else. 

we spent two true nights together

and on the third, I went to his house

and he told me that he couldn't do it anymore, that I should leave

and he went into the next room and put on sigur ros

and was crying and writing.

I sat in his kitchen, on his blowup mattress

and I cried, too

and I composed a letter to him

and I refused to leave because he was too important to me

and I already loved him with everything in me.

I forced myself to start smoking. marlboro reds, I thought they seemed tough.

and one day I stopped him at school, and I told him that he was too important

that we were too important to not know each other

and he agreed to have coffee with me.

he showed up. we talked & talked like nothing had changed

he asked if I wanted to go with him to take pictures

and so we drove to indianapolis.

we ate caffeine pills and smoked cigarettes

and I watched the midwestern middle-of-nowhere constellations

and I watched the sunrise 

over the chicago cityscape.

he left me at my house

and we hugged for a long time

and we were inseparable

later on we told each other that we loved each other

and we were best friends

but I crumbled when he'd fuck other girls

and refuse to sleep in my bed with me

and eventually I crumbled so badly

that I couldn't keep anything together anymore

so we lost each other

but I will never, ever regret

the millions of things learned.

hysteriaparty

haha

I am laughing, it rarely sounds like that, but I am full of it

 my dad used to say I was full of it a lot

 it took me awhile to realize being full of it is being full of shit

I was young, shit as shit didn't cross my mind

I left work yesterday and took nathan with me, and he met her

and she had that shellshocked look, like who's this man in my house!

and I don't care... but I should

  I should care, really I should

I locked us out of the house, I had to call Nickey to ask her to rescue us

we sat in the car

  Nathan drank the end of a bottle of flat rosé

  and I drank an apricot cider from a jar

and we smoked, and we listened to the lana del rey pandora station

  and I read him a bad poem, but I didn't write it

  we laughed

  he buttoned up his pale blue collared shirt to the top 

and he put on one of the bolo ties that hangs from my rearview mirror, 

  the one someone in my family got as an easter present in the '60s

  with the aqua leather and the silver horse running.

she rescued us

  we bought more beer

  we took our beachchairs

and I got into the river.

the others came & I had the other others on my mind

  and I was tired of looking at everything

  like my hair, my body

Nathan said If it's inside me, if it's invisible, it doesn't exist

and I said, What lungs? and the crowd echoed, laughing  

                 Liver, who?

I was tired of looking around until the wind picked up

  a fuzz layer took our sun away

   Where's my son?

then the cotton was floating around from the branches,

  it looked like snow

I looked downriver, the wind blowing all the trees, the white fluffs

and I thought this looks like the strangest storm

  here, with my damp swimmingdress on

  and the warm

  and the vague light of the sun,

but this could be a winter's storm

and this could be snow.

what if it was snowing right now?

the wind picked up around us, blowing us over

I went to the car to get sweaters

I got naked in the car for a minute

I walked on the sharp rocks

I told myself to stop looking for it

to stop searching it out

to do what it takes to unlatch

  and when I'm drunk, it's so easy to clear everything but these sorts of words

   with an understanding chuckle, here & there

but I woke up sober, so here I am again

teeth in, ready to anxiety-attack myself

  but what doesn't go away

  is the knowledge that you don't inspire me, you any

                                     & I don't admire anything about you, at all

  and of course, this makes me feel more the fool

as I continue

something so gross,

  so uninspe-rable

  so unadmire-able

but I'm going to go cut my hair now,

  the ugly ombre that everyone brings up

   because I've got to save that money

   because we've something like 44 days

until I break

   physically

from my gooey cords 

  giving me sicklife

  from your gross shells. I wish this was only but finally about one person

a one You

  so I could have an explosion party, so I could blow you up

but You are Many too Many and my brain splashes

 in an overdone explosion party

   where I'm the only once celebrated, and I'm the only one lauded 

and I didn't even get invited because I 

just

live there

I'm going to call this paragraph, "this is why I hate you" by molly merrill stoddard

hate me because I'm fat, then
hate me because I'm a coward
hate me because I make bodypromises
hate me because I'm ugly
take a chance on me, and I'll on you, too
go ahead & hate me for that.
hate me for being far away from you
  for falling in love
    with any attention-giver I can find
hate me for being an awful writer
hate me for writing all the time
hate me for taking breaths in between
hate me for disappearing
  for ignoring you
hate me for telling you everything
hate me for my honesty
hate me for my certainty
  and for sucking it all away from you
hate me for promises
hate me for my uncertain future
hate me for my sad
hate me for my being a sedentary mass
hate me for kissing you
hate me for my awkward fuck
hate me for my money
hate me for my snacks
hate pictures of me, for images of my subtle movements
hate me for my flatness
hate me for existing, invisible
hate me for my reason
  for my neglect
hate me for changing my mind
hate me for my sorries
hate me for my selfish
hate me for my gross corpse
  that you hang from, yourself a gross corpse

ammmn't, anymore

one pack a day on some summer night! I am sorry I tried that, I have hundreds of unfinished paragraphs. what day is it, even? trying to count in evens. I think we're at 45. all of my relationships are mountains. I don't like some of your names. I like mine own. a bull charging at me, charge me. I slept with the one who broke my heart for years. I was a whole person, again and I thought I'd never be. I said inside voiced, I guess you'll own me forever. I would do anything you say. I would move to chicago instantly at your urge. ready to be destroyed again. but of course, I am bigger than I thought. big enough to brush away memory shines, pull out the splinters. lamenting at seven whole years passed. you're not a matter-to-me, I'm glad I'm on the internet where you'd never think to look for me. I'm alright with your living, our earlymorning why not. I didn't tell you anything, and you faded like time makes. my hair still grows, I still sustain a body. the craze wanders, dissipates. but we must have known when we started, again. smoke a pack to your face and die of young too-much, much too young.

farawayapology

me, able me
me avoiding you me
I
ornate headdress
of emblazoned silver coins welded,
like the ones hanging in the carpeted booth of iraqi battle garb that one time I'm london smoking hash, gettong hiton
exemplar of exoticism
obscuring faces
I said, are you sad that I'm leaving
and you said yes, but this isn't written to you
I am writing, no I am thinking of you
I want to drive down the hill to the gasstation by the sandcliffs to talk to you there, I am sad that you're not
like he is, when I won't be
& I want you
to want to know everything. onlyuidred butdw fixszzcnallyzz like that.
I was drunk, not crying
but I was crying when you said you'd be sad. you're thinking of your parents, losing their minds
walking to the store for some scotch
getting lost on the way.
take the car away, sorry.
I learned last night
that the year my grandfather died
he was driving down bogus basin road
with his brother in law riding in the scrub seat
and the red jeep ended
upside down in a ditch
john would have been confused
and bruce would have been bitching
Goddammit! Watch my goddamn legs, you're hurting me! griping all the way to rescue
I'm griping towards rescue, I think
I'm guilty that I'm not here anymore, for you
I am a sorrygirl
but I am displayed allover
displaced thing
timing it to find
my parts in ditches, in ancient across-the-world rugs
behind weighty masks
an old kid
in a beatup wreck

lil barfy

this isn't anything. some things produce some things indicate a predilection some things are

the best

no one reads, I can't read any

more good ideas, watch the

turn it off, staaare at your hair

pull it out

of one end 

is not the necessary end all

I'll be all

I'll be all right

side up

side down

side up 

side down

the hatch 

was a fun discovery

channel your those good vibes

tinkle with your felt mallet

my head into pulp

free orange juice is worth

less than worthy

are you

worthy of

course you

might be

someday is today

could be the one 

thing I think about

going away now

is the wrong moment

is what, your favorite

excuse me, but

did you

wish on

the same

star

at the same time?

spice juice

give the length of a sip trying for sun,

the grass always an unnatural shade

faster and fast crawls across

this time of day, meaning, this time of today

or a similar time, but yesterday

oh accidental chives!

oh concrete cubbyhole!

  & the waving nylon slap, whoosh

oh waving onomatqxrzzzdrzzzfzxzZ (onomatopoeia) 

red, always the dull sunworn red

  on flag day

on your staggered haphazard white poles.

pour hours into your glass

heat to serve it to leave it to cool

the tops are for you, they froze for you

finger them out, thumb them loose

they move away from your touch instantly

cringe away the cold, frozen moment

but thumb them, finger-to-mouth them

make them last till 9

with its highwilling sun

and longmoving shadows

 watch melt it

gather your hair in your hands,

  sunset glimmer grass of heat

  grass of heat of head

  mow your head in the sand

   guzzle your years by your roots

     melt melt melt drink

 do,

      only finally but

in the forever

in the coast. there were coasts everywhere, canyons like cliffs. someone last week flew a
  porche off a cliff from the wind road we drove in the early hours
we talk abt deaths a lot, so often sometimes we become immune to that it's better
  than we, we immortal
standing in the place you were
when you exploded your head off
  we feel best when we climb over it
& we're standing there overlooking

like the night city is incomprehensible
like a new city is
but I'm picturing us all there
the ones who'll never leave our sides, hands chained, fingers interlocked
the width of us a city block
the width of us a city's thickness
the width of us deathless, now
the past a murmur
the past is murdered
and we've nights
for our bodies
to web out
like kids
like the future really is ours, then
to fly off cliffs
or to hold on & spread out & go
 at the good invented forever

molly

rollin down the brown sagecovered hills
home at the new ultramarine morning
  you said I'll be one of the five people you think about
  on your deathbed, we all said quite a few nice things to each other
drove up in there
until we found the view
the orange city lines
blankets in the back, seats down & us all talking
I am a mellow bush
I want warm warm body
rushing me, it's jawing
I love a good bed
I love we'll love each other forever
I love you love I love you unconditional
a comfort that that is OK
bc we seem to be only a few of us
I am glad to have you all. if not your warmflesh in the touch-me warmflesh way
just your warmflesh always-love-me way

wailing

everytime

I go out back of the foothills mansionhouse

to the patio, which is a nice patio

I mean, one can smell the sagebrush, and there are many little birds flitting

and no trafficsounds

the uphill neighbor guy starts whacking his weeds

and edging his lawns

  I mean, this guy has a lawns 

where there was once desert

yeah there was once desert here

and no fancy rich foothills mansionhouses

  so complaining of lawn

  is already pretty moot

oh my god there is a fucking baby here! I hear it!

I'm such an asshole

I'm smoking a cigarette

and the guy stopped doing his lawn

and I can hear a newborn wailing inside

to do

an anxious scoop. I think about gayle, about the peasant (self-given name), about the one who's not like us. they are all big hearts in my life, but they and I are anxious-making combos, and I like to live without it. maybe there is only one person with whom I am truly close & we get it & move on together. I suppose I am afraid of them & feel like getting away forever from them. this passes. but I am a turmoil bubble. this is time moving fast, and dead stopped. go to do to quit avoiding to avoid the bedlam.

i woke up here, today

finally coffee & roses, a wide old stoop. nickey had to move out from the mansionhouse. I slept so as not to be too far away, ever. in a cornerroom, many windows, and I feel like all I do is mention windows. I feel like my relations are sort of bedlamy. there is no adjective for it, maybe. uproar, confusion? scenes of madness? it must be me, I'm the common denominator. ha ha it's all about me. when I moved to chicago I went to my first urban outfitters. wait... no, I went to an urban outfitters with my dad when I was 15 in bend, oregon. I was grounded so he forced me to go on a ski trip with him over springbreak, which was actually quite fine, we listened to the wall in the car and I read all of the lyrics, and I was like, man who knew pink floyd was so relevant, I just thought dead kennedys and anti-flag were relevant, and afi who helped me veer in later years to some emo place. we went to the urban outfitters, I had a meager allowance at the time though I doubt it was terribly meager because my mom gave it to me so it was probably pretty hefty. I mostly spent it on pot. but I bought a blue skirt with birds on it. birds on clothing and tattoos has been done for hundreds of thousands of years. it's one of those eternitrends. we went to portland, too, and I'd never been there before. britta was there, her brother bought me a pipe & a blue plastic bong (with my allowance). I named my pipe princess symphony and I named my bong sgt. bongo after my friend stacie. my dad let me drive the car awhile on the way home. I got ungrounded when I came back to boise. for a little while, like a couple of weeks. but in chicago I was never grounded again, so I went with this girl named cindy who I thought might become my best friend. she was like, Let's go to urban outfitters and I was like, Ya, that sounds pretty cool. we met a girl named mary who was with jean, who immediately became my best friend. jean told me a couple of weeks ago that she is pregnant. the year after I met jean we moved into a brownstone on kedzie blvd in logan square and she was the baby machine for halloween. she had babies all over her, and she was pregnant, and she had this phone cord attached to her and was dragging around this baby that we'd covered in fake blood. I was a dead bride. at the party I made out with two boys and fell in love with one of them. he was my best friend for awhile, but I was always terribly in love with him. at urban outfitters, the day I met jean, I bought a book called ALL ABOUT ME. you answer questions like who do you love what are your favorite colors, etc. I think I threw it away after I filled it out because I thought it was embarrassing. the things that don't embarrass me that should make me wonder, sometimes. I don't wish I still had it, I'm sure it was hopeful & maudlin & very, very teen. can I blame my parents? did they not teach me to think of others, ever? when I was a kid my grandmother told my dad that she didn't think that I liked her and my grandfather. my dad told me, and I felt this feeling I'd maybe never felt before. I think it was regret. I'd already felt guilt one million times. it was likely a combination of the two. from then on I tried really hard to show them that I loved them. I think it worked. I still can't imagine what I'd done as a child to make my grandparents think that I didn't like them. the thought makes me feel creeped. I must have isolated myself & never smiled. but what's smiling, anyway? when I moved to highlands elementary in the middle of 6th grade my mom told me that she thought I'd make friends at my new school if I smiled more. I thought that sounded like a reasonable plan, so I tried, I really smiled, I smiled a lot at everyone, I was friendly. but I didn't make any friends. in fact, I had enemies which I'd never really had. one of those enemies was kari, with whom I am temporarily living now. her friends monica & teri & jessica-marie would dare kari to do things, like cutting her hair and taping it to my desk and writing cryptic notes to me. I didn't know how to react to that, so I hung by myself on the playground. on the first day of school, the popular girls asked me to sit with them at lunch. I smiled a lot, but I was very shy. I tried not to be weird. jessica opened her milkcarton and asked me if I knew megan, who went to my old school. I don't think I could smile, then. megan was my archrival since kindergarten. jessica asked me if I thought she was a bitch. I said yes, I did. it was over for me with the popular girls. jessica would come to school and yell across the playground, Molly, I heard you dye your hair. I totally did but I said, No, I don't. none of them really talked to me after that. I stopped smiling pretty fast, decided again not to brush my hair. it wasn't very fun at the new school. I wanted to write stories and plays and have my friends act them out at recess like I used to do at roosevelt elementary. but all everyone else did was play tag. I didn't like running, or being chased, or feeling like I was losing. so I would go and sit on the hill and watch the two groups of girls who hated me. but they also hated each other. I would listen to them talk shit about each other. jessica would laugh at how kari was a cow and how jessica-marie was a stick figure. I thought it was mean, but that they deserved it. 

I've liked the album the wall for my whole life. it's one of kyle's favorite albums, we listened to it on the way back from raunchfest, we listened to it when he came to family dinner. I haven't been into urban outfitters for awhile, I tried to steal a bra from there but I got nervous and just paid for it. I also tried on some stretchy floral pants to make bikeshorts from one time, but there was mad blood in the crotch and I was so disgusted I just left without telling them. it did make me laugh. I feel like everyone then had a convoluted idea about who they were & we're a confused people, but it's all about us. 

bitchy

the nigttime crowd at the coffeeshop is okay, I guess
there's a cutie in there
he has a big beard and some kind of ponytail deal
a good face
an alright name
he's a 27 yr old aquarius
he laughed
I poured him an apricot cider
he used to have an oregon ID
and I'm s-ing my h, on the inside
but now he lives in idaho
and he's wearing a tiedye slugbug shirt
and a walletchain
on his plaid bro shorts

I wonder if he noticed how stupidly I'm dressed
in my comfort shoes,
and child's camouflage
probably not
he's not considering anything abt me
but that I can pour beer for him
and that I'm a nervegirl
he doesn't know I'm a nevergirl
and that his outfit's a dealbreaker
regardless of his hair
or his brain heart innards
because I'm highfashion judgething
whocareswhocares
MAKIN THAT $$$$$$

"and a liar... and pathetic..." (6/12/13)

I found you. I will find out everything about you, too. You won't know, because I am an invisible thing

I am a thing you know about

but really you don't

because you've never met me, never will remember me

Isn't it fun? I would ask you

To be an unreturnable?

to think you haven't a thought about it. I am a wish spyer

I will pay extra close

any amount of $$, silently

like I'm a wall

but I haven't any walls like you.

I guess this is where you live, then. So this is your place? god what a scum place you've made into

What are your walls made of? Where are your softspots.

How do you even say my name like that, when have you ever said my name

I've heard you say it aloud, in some past

we were living in a present then

I gave all the presents I could think of, still do

I have already taken myself back

I have been taken aback.

but I'm hanging on the walls

a crack

in your softwood, grosswood, moldwood

you are a fat disgusting wood, tall & forward & upright barely

I have to go to work

and pretend like I like to be there

everyone, no not everyone

most everyone has a problem like this, you know, with work

unless you like to do what you're being paid to do

but who does, who does figure this out?

I ate too much salad, which is funny

because salad is so little, so good-for-me

and I am pretty little, I am pretty bad-for-me, though

Was I worse for you? when I existed

Why am I the only one asking all of the questions, here?

Why am I the alone interviewer? How will I get my articles published? 

without the answers I'm needing

I don't know.

I don't like where you live,

 I don't like YOUR grub

it's a gross grub

and I don't blame them for not wanting you

I don't wonder why they won't

and that doesn't leave me with questions

so instead I will just sit here & interrogate

myself

the world

the seasons

the wind

I saw the moon again, it's back

and I can't wait to interrogate it tonight when I get off of work

I'm going downtown

to paste up a portrait of Carl Sandburg in some ugly boise alleyway

and a portrait of Mark Twain on some gross streetcorner

and a portrait of Walt Whitman on jamba juice or something, I D K

but first I have to find a paintbrush, and a roller, and I have to make some wheatpaste

and I have to care to

rather than to not care to

and during all of this I will be asking the questions, here

I will do all of the talking

at the moon, or whoever you are

and I won't be answered (maybe)

but the last time we spoke

you actually did answer me

you reminded me why I've never loved you, & why I don't love you now

because there are Actual people in the world

who are Actually there

Actually available

who Actually, Actually give a shit 

about something other

than some decrepit broke shell 

for inhabiting

that's big enough only 

for your brokenopen egg

because nothing else exists to you

save for alone

& sad

& miserable

& longing for longing for who isn't longing back at you,
backwards glance garbagehouse

6/12 3:16 pm

float float float float float float, tear & sink

why can you make me cry? no, no, of course you don't make me do anything. but why do my heads stuff up with tear balloons at you, sometimes. it isn't you, I know. I haven't ever met you. so why. it's not a question. I have thoughts of you, I fill them with those float-making gases. we all know I am a gasballoon, I shove it out into space. I am actually really sorry, in a nonapologetic way. I think it is called pity. do my tear wells come out with pity pies for you, then? maybe I have pitied you all along. pity has never been an act of love. I have never loved you. I will always love you. which is true, is it both true. this isn't questions. am I an empathetic one? am I sympathy for only finally but me. I am truly sorry. I wish I could touch you all the way down. I wish I could explain how I wish I could understand. I wish I could be there in the deep part to understand someone else. I am understanding of me. I want to share it, understanding can be an infinite thing, no? well, that is definitely not a question. but I am sorry, for you. I think you are better than you think you are, better than you think I think you are, but you don't think of me at all but how would I know? this is no question. I ask a lot of questions, don't I. that wasn't really one. I ask a lot of questions at the wind and they won't answer back at me. so there aren't any, it's like I wasted the wind trying to get something back from a wind that's gone long before I've sent anything out in it. it's dispersed invisible before it even hits the dispersed invisible, you know? you don't know, so there's no question in that. be okay, please, I do think so, I do want it to be like that for you. I hope you get out of there & in something else. a hope is a sort of question. a hope is a gassy balloon. hope is for the clouds & we live in there. or I do. I'd ask if you do, but you aren't answers at all. only finally but stop making me cry. you can't make me do anything. you are a free country

i think we're presenting

What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen? I was asked and I have never been asked. Once it was your eyes, a most boring blue. Because they looked at me in this way. Or because they looked at me. Now they are not. For awhile I thought I would only love a blonde. I like the translucent skin, to see organs and veins. It makes a body seem brittle, like flesh to be ripped. I wanted to look for Scandinavian peoples. Like the tall strange-faced ones, like this was it. The crawl up a long body to some exaggerated feature. A bulbous nose, small bead eyes. A long thick neck, scar tissue, adult acne. A touch on some underground pustule. If you can, I can. If only while you are a mattress for me. I'll wish you'd read the line from Song of Myself      not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar then the rest        I wish you'd read that over & over as I have. This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Where were you looking, just now? Erase JUST from a vocabulary, replacing it with ONLY or BUT or FINALLY. Which of these words is oldest? Guess ONLY because it has to be, english is only just but finally slightly old. Ancenned is the old english form. Take your justice back to the century, be better off. But you won't have your common comforts. Finally would be french, you'd never be french, you'd never go to france, you wouldn't leave your flat pocket, would you. I had a french boyfriend once, only, but he was my amant français stupide and he had the most slender hips & hairless body, and I gianted, and that was beautiful. Sunken cheeks and brown sad eyes. The brown-eyed are saddened darkfolk. It isn't the lack of pigment, it's all of the world's pigment like a vortex for all of the sads of all of the worlds. Lighten my load. Look at my very eyes. Match them to yours. I'd trust you less if you were trusting of soap. I'll plunge all of my buds into your dirt, familiarizing your everythings with your everythings else. This was a beauty. Dancing toward me in my graveyard. After my destruction, the wideset green eyes & giant bones I cast to the wind for my own downbringing. Dance toward me. This wasn't as beautiful after. I hate promises, but they can be the brightest beauty. Apologies can drop holes in you too often. I'm jaded by the landscapes, now. Unless you're my landscape. My face makes you cry, I am too terrible to look at. All of this is true, justify my text please. Take my picture with you obscured behind. If only an easy thing to delete, it was. A memory can be a sad beauty. You tell me you've broken up with your girlfriend, you're in my body & you've forgotten me, but I've remembered that I love you forever. This is the bluest pretty memory, looking into a depthless pool. You are a pretty cruel. Memory bones. These are what I used to imagine as the Truest. I pull my hair out for it, when I was young I had very beautiful hair. It never got brushed so sometimes that was a discussion. I can take part in the tedious with you. We'll talk later, we have lists upon lists. Only once to open my eyes and be unable to count them all. 

hazetime

last night we went to the clubhouse for sunset with two copies of t.s. eliot's play, the cocktail party. the sky was going from brevity storm purplegray on the northwestern to fuschia to magenta to oxblood, the temperature & low glowlight perfect on our drowse skin. we each had to read the part of three characters, which proved awkward when one reader had to act all parts in a conversation for pages, throwing accents back & forth. the dog tramped, kicked up soft brown dirt for her shape hole, eventually settling in the dust. but first filling our shoes with the good clubhouse earth. she raged up & down the hill after other bad dogs here, after a covey of quail there. comments on existence, on the devastations & impermanence were made, our mouths sounding out eliot's words like those coming straight from my own. characters giving one another the advice to wait, to just Wait. & I'm learning to. after the first act the northwestern portion had changed to some expensive purple, and breeze whipped around the sagebrush. down the slope, stopping at the plateau to view villa norte & the bare green foothills & the lazy citylights. caught my hair & tossed it around. we ate salads & scapes & cheese, and I opened windows and made myself naked in the mufflenight. I awoke at 3 am & since can't write read some hemingway stories, passing out before flicking through darkness the chitinous body of some invisible bug. I heard sounds & managed to fall into a waterfall of dreams. o to be the satisfied one, once more.

growup

puuff puuff passss
 
what's the secret
  you're trying to tell me a secret
beneath a bridge, in a raincar
  finally you're like me, you like me now
  I stopped thinking, I had a good braintime and then it turned
  into me, just months. let's get this callout! I am a most tender callous girl. I have never been younger.
  I talked to my mom, she wants to take everyone to the galapagos islands. she wants me to start thinking of the future, she doesn't want me to get fat. she doesn't want me to be a waitress for the rest of my life. she wants me to treat my illnesses. she wants me to surround myself with interesting people, she wants me to be an Artist. this is partly why we don't talk all that often

 I wish I could have told you abt her
before you died, but
you might have been
  too concerned with dying
  so hear more
for your deadugly ears
  a little worm for tunneling
   
while I was writing this, my mom called
she wants me to get a guestroom
in my mansionhouse
  so everyone can visit
    and I'm like duh, I will always
try to do that

flirt journey

  I want to
overwhelm your mountains
  hey, girl
  I am a dripper of coins
a pouch for you, stain your sheets with copper and nickel
stick to your summer fur
rub me behind the earfolds, makeawish
  sit around outside in dark dark silent summer
  or lay on your stone, on your back, shirt pulled up
   pale stomach
   constellation-lit
  my constellated torso
and
  longlegs
crossed at the ankles
  be my best friend at nighttime
    urge me coquette
   try for me to call you through a flirt, a longdistance wink at-me
   so I can fold my wings
   under my down spots
    in my own bod
     to wihdraw from your touch-words
    the threat of
    the hum of
  your mellifluous murmurs
it might be on the way, or a thousand miles out of
  on the way
    the pacific, almost reaches
    or canada, it nearly touches me
  get me in your forest climate,
    I want into your urging dense
      your fat ancient wood
    making me a small thing,
       an occasional thing
    my spot body for your moss
  to cling to
      give my suctions little flirts to grip
    and temporary promises to sigh about

just love me

dear diary,

I have the good hair, things on feet to jump run scuffle with

it's a full moon in my head and I keep thinking when's my fullmoon birthday

  2024

I'll be coming on 40

I can't wait to be 40 

we'll kill the teen-in-me by then

  I hope I didn't keep you waiting, or anything hearts

   remember the hearts, how to learn? to make them

it's like somehow, inside

 me already though

who do i think i am

I did enough last night to justify

my never leaving the house

  oh... you're moving to new orleans?

  but I was planning

to go there, to never have to see you again

  and we could have gone together

  and you didn't have to give up on me

  and you could have given me a chance!

  because you're the one!

I'm the one,

  right

we were yelling in front of the bar,

  and we were crying

  bc I hear you so well

but I don't think you can with your dead ears.

do I get credited for the ruins of someone else's heart, now?

do I get to be the guy 

do I get to be the beloved, for a change?

  ha

I left & walked, and did some unsavory

  business in front of my old highschool. I was laughing, now

    and I rode my bike home

      and I did more bad things

        some regretables

          but I haven't any apologies

    I just keep

 trying

for some reason

 to not be

   the one, anymore

up

subtle basshea y
it is a summer day, isn't it
like a dry piece of fruit?
heavy blinds slicing the sun
open some cherries & put them in a glass
  get fizzed
oh, I know you

get out of me

I have too many romance words falling on dead ears

there are about a million 

of you

I'd whisper to

I keep urging to suck out my pretty whispers

but

maybe I'm urging too hard?

or

maybe my whispers are prettyless

or

maybe all of the millions x 2

ears on you 

are really truly dead ones

we're in the heat of summer

we're in the heat of bummer, now

  but actually, this is a total joke

   totes jk

hey

  hey

    hey

        wish I could make it tonight, for your performance

o imagine how I'd perform tonight!

  if only I wasn't

   just starring in this

    own boring show of mine

hanging in front of the bowling alley

is great work. I am so tired today. I think my nails are growing long, they don't look too terribly shabby, grubby. I guess I don't reeally care anymore. I am an idc person today. how did I get so many obligations. what do I care

about

it? I mean, why. I took this good pic in front of the bowling alley, but no one wants to see it. so why would I care? I have nothing to say. I just like june, but I want to float preparedly through june & july. I want the hot car, goin to states new to me. I want to make me into a new-to-me kindof girl.

desperado

my mom called me twice, in a hurry
and sent a text urging me to call her please
so I was freaking
like oh shit, what did I do nowww
so I called her and she said, I want you to come to denver for my birthday
  everyone's going to be there
and I said, Okay...
and she said, Great
I'm buying you a ticket to the eagles concert
    and I'm like,
O FUKK
  pushing 30
     and going to an eagles concert
          when did I become THAT GUY
smdh

"it sort of seems like we fell in love"

  or,

"love is for lo$ers"

  

   I don't know

I mean idk how to put it?

                      now, how would you put it

you fell in love with your own image from across the street

you fell in love across a table, mussels

I fell in love with long bones

I fell in love with stringytough muscles

you fell in love with the sound of your own voice

you fell in love with the rain

I fell in love with attention

I fell in love with those grips on me

you fell in love with regret

you fell in love with the frozen future

I fell in love with possibility

I fell in love with bedding

you fell in love with disappear

you fell in love with surprise-I'm-sad

I fell in love with hazy hair

I fell in love with the mouth of the world

you fell in love with let-me-break-your-heart

you fell in love with the lovers

I fell in love with memories

I fell in love with booze

you fell in love with booze

you fell in love with what

I fell in love with pain

I fell in love with me, again?

you fell in love with poems

you fell in love with I'm-not-writing

I fell in love with trying
I fell in love with crylaughing

you fell in love with giving up

you fell in love off the overhang

  I just think we fell in love, totally

   and that we're scratching our ways back

     to whatever dregs we already were

       before we had to look up the words

        in our well masturbated dictionaries

closet muscle

I think of cyan in everything
I put it on all of my clothes
someone got fired today
it's sortof dullsky, I wonder if he got to the bar
to get shitfaced after being shitcanned
I have a birthday present for you
happy birthday! here is some of my smokehair
oh, you left a quarter in my bed, how tender
how tedious, I left a button beneath your pillow
  from my dusty vermilion silk shirt
  I wore cornflower blue tights
    peeled from my body
and can't wear my shirt anymore
  till I sew back the button
you should ignore me, I'm a firelight
  watch, I ignite
  gold ingots, look it up
impressss me
  get another pillow so we won't have to share
  put a shirt on it
let me sand allover your bed
  brush it off
   dog paws running against your wall
  scratch me off, cook me dinner in the waxing morninghours
   tell me to move in to your attic bedroom
     I can say whatever I want
       abt you
         bc you'll never read me
  suggest fingers to point at yrself consciousness
     tell me I don't appear to have any, make me laff
read abt how to woo a woman
by bringing a blanket out
  read about how to fuck
    or how to trade tender for passion
   or let's discuss
     that I love the talls, the uglies
       tell me that just bc I'm tan... thank you
          tell me I'm too goodlooking
for any of them
   tell me abt yr disease
     and yr panic
     and yr sad because-of-it-all
  and I'll tell you how we're ready for ever

like everyone

like everyone you cry when you are kissed
  especially in the dark, a tear falling silent from each little eye
down each little cheek
flat on your back, a body
hanging over you
  like everyone does
you think abt love
abt how to kiss without sound
escape
without tears audible
to keep your kissing audience
  in the dark
you definitely don't want a conversation here, now about that
  and you remember the chill of connectionless
  and going in a motion of
no-I-really-do-want-you
just like you think I do want you
  with the windows open & naked
like two kings
  in one kingdom
  trying to share a body
but without that kingdom-brain
without anything for striving
  it's chilly
  & you've got to chill
to flat-on-your-back relax, now
  because kissing is not for minds
  or saving-for-loves only
and loneliness doesn't it save
  you from dying, touchless?
you would cringe for weeks at being touched
  building your fortress
  around your rancid heart
    to keep it all from taking you to war
and like everyone, you try to buzz it away
  with fleets of imagined fire
    and the knowing
  that a body
and a mouth
  can be healthily penetrated
    
     but a brain,
oh
     but that still makes your moats flood out
   and the road is washed away
  so no one can get to us
at all
  anymore

treasures

what are we
if not jewels
little faceted gems, shining dully in the sunlight
  grubby precious delights
     stoned by rushes
        of water wear
            water tear
        like a tear-us-down
        like a tear-up-now
      worn at the edges
     all of the boring rivers
       and the boring earth
  were trying to wash us away
but we're
   bedazzled
      and through the skin haze
you can see our glow-worth
like old patinad coinage
    in some boring blue fountain

one nightstand

one object cannot flank another object
one beard is not the world's beard
a bed on the floor doesn't allow for a tall table
  but a wooden box on which
to set earlymorning unmentionables
  or to obscure little desire-machines
  don't check my motor
  can I check my pockets?
give me your square teeth
  should I say hi to you?
sure, do it
  no no, nevermind
    don't say anything.
a bandana person
  save your scent to share
    get your neckblanket on me
to guzzle
   you through a nose & open drink mouth
I am pretending to smoke a cigarette
in the alleyway, back to the sun
  bc I want to think abt being naked, if you can imagine
  and the tight holds
handles of bones
  a spotted concave chest
    a long torso
      a maybe ugly
    a darling as darling as darling
instead of wandering, breaking everything
  shattering itall
    sparkle cuts allovertheplace
who needs furniture? we ask
  new orleans is on my to do, you said
  a given name? what give you me?
I'm really glad, you said
  we met
stay sweet, I said
  stay sweet, we said, and did
    I'll bet
from our low cushions
  and nightstands

someone take care of it

someone put exhaust in the smoke
or maybe a body's trying to say something
we are a fantasy crowd.
we breathe out noses.
months away (not so very far distances away!)
  and I keep thinking how when I was in new york
  I really wanted one of those gold script ID necklaces
  that all the cool brooklyn babes would wear
and I'm not talking abt the williamsburg babes
highwasted jeans
long hair, big shades
with stick arms
I'm talking about the applebottom babes
  but I wanted one with my old boyfriend's name
  and the guy at the shop informed me that
No, this necklace should be mine
no boys allowed
it's a good thing I didn't do it
else now I'd have a necklace
of Adan
  and we're friends, I'll always love that guy
but I couldn't exactly wear proudly his namesake now, could I?
  how many chains could I wear
if I had all of the $$
  for all of the names
     of everyone I've loved?
just pounds of goldplated shines
  hanging from my grub neck
I'd have to have all of the world's $$, again
  and that would be a weighty take
     on forever

grossbod

it was yesterday. all of boise's finest showed up at the greek food festival. I'd never seen them before
  the band didn't play, really
there was someone playing a keyboard, one of those drummachine outfits
okay, we'll just call him the drummer
and a boise's finest
playing a bouzouki
...Don't be alarmed! he cried, Don't take cover
beneath your tables and chairs, I didn't say bazooka-
  soft chuckles from under breaths
there was a bass player who just kept putting his back to the crowd
a crowd of old women & toddlers
dancing in a circle.
Did someone say FOOD? boise's finest seemed to cry from out of the woodwork
and they put on their tight shorts
to encase their sausage legs
and they strapped on their bejeweled sandals.
a little fat fauxhawked kid, sobbing
bc he'd punched a girl in the stomach & was being reprimanded
a gem in a mount rushmore at night themed tee
a gem in a giant housedress, admirable.
I snuck across the street with my beer
and hung out with the boy who's nice to me, for some reason
I had at least three square meals
I got a singlass tan
I hung out with my family. my dad put on the wall and kyle freaked out
my dad & I talked about love
he said I should never change, that I should always go for everything, like I do.
he is like me.
and he is good, he finds it
for 63 years.
I am proud to come from that.
so far june does me right
and may,
may was a thing
of me being dead & weak & strong again
and I'm happy,
  so this isn't a poem, anymore